Subject: Re: Understanding Erik Naggum
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 12 Oct 2002 17:21:45 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3243432105760080@naggum.no>
* quasi <quasiabhi@yahoo.com>
| This is my last say on this issue. I do not do something /just/ because
| the others are doing it.
My point has not been to change your annoying behavior, but to make you
think. about something you do not agree with. You show a characteristic
unwillingness to consider that your opponent's position may be good, and
instead devote nearly all your effort to defend yourself and claim that
your opponent's position is no good. This is fantastically stupid.
I really wonder why people do such things. Grasping your opponent's
position is the first order of business when you wish to understand
something -- /anything/ that you do not already know. Instead of
devoting a modicum of time to realize what your opponent is saying, so
many stupid people spend all their time distorting their opponent's views
and if their opponent accurately summarizes their own position as it has
been exhibited, they attack, that, too, instead of trying to /understand/
how things work. Neither are they willing to engage in an intellectual
exercise in actually understanding what is going on. Fucking annoying.
| What I do has to "light my fire" as well as satisfy my conscience.
It is important to follow one's conscience, but those who find that there
is value in submitting to the will of the community and still work to
achieve their goals often find that the community is able to sustain and
accept their efforts. For some weird reason, people who criticize others
for things that they clearly succeed with never seem able to /understand/
the position of their opponent, either. They behave in the same way you
do: It is more important to them to satisfy their conscience than to
accomplishg anything actually /productive/ and /constructive/. The lack
of focus on the tasks at hand is quite alarming, actually. This is what
I want to know about people I comment on and primarily want to /think/.
Some people seem unable to think about what somebody else says without
believing they agree or even "condone" the opponent in a large number of
other dimensions. This, too, is very important to know about people.
| That is the reason I am doing my project in Lisp where /all/ the other 84
| people chose C++ or Java (www.ncst.ernet.in). I have to slog it out
| alone while the other have groups of 4-5 working together. There were
| "good" thinking folks who said I was a fool to stand out like a nut.
| That I was insane.
Going alone for its own sake is as wrong as going along for its own sake.
--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder.
Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.